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arXiv:2206.09775 · Modern Physics Letters A

Finite-group gauge theories on lattices as Hamiltonian systems with constraints

M. F. Araujo de Resende

Published Feb 28, 2023• 0 citations
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Abstract

In this work, we present a brief but insightful overview of the gauge theories, which are defined on n-dimensional lattices by using finite gauge groups, in order to show how they can be interpreted as a Hamiltonian system with constraints, analogous to what happens with the classical (continuous) gauge (field) theories. As this interpretation is not usually explored in the literature that discusses/introduces the concept of lattice gauge theory, but some recent works have been exploring Hamiltonian models in order to support some kind of quantum computation, we use this interpretation to, for example, present a brief geometric view of one class of these models: the Kitaev Quantum Double Models.

DOI
10.1142/s021773232330001x

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In this work, we present a brief but insightful overview of the gauge theories, which are defined on n-dimensional lattices by using finite gauge groups, in order to show how they can be interpreted as a Hamiltonian system with constraints, analogous to what happens with the classical (continuous) gauge (field) theories. As this interpretation is not usually explored in the literature that discusses/introduces the concept of lattice gauge theory, but some recent works have been exploring Hamiltonian models in order to support some kind of quantum computation, we use this interpretation to, for example, present a brief geometric view of one class of these models: the Kitaev Quantum Double Models.
In this paper, we investigate how it is possible to define a new class of lattice gauge models based on a dualization procedure of a previous generalization of the Kitaev Quantum Double Models. In the case of this previous generalization that will be used as a basis, it was defined by adding new qudits (which were denoted as matter fields in reference to some works) to the lattice vertices with the intention of, for instance, interpreting its models as Kitaev Quantum Double Models coupled with Potts ones. Now, with regard to the generalization that we investigate here, which we want to define as the dual of this previous one, these new qudits were added to the lattice faces. And as the coupling between gauge and matter qudits of the previous generalization was performed by a gauge group action, we show that the dual behavior of these two generalizations was achieved by coupling these same qudits in the second one through a gauge group co-action homomorphism. One of the most striking dual aspects of these two generalizations is that, in both, part of the quasiparticles that were inherited from the Kitaev Quantum Double Models become confined when these action and co-action are nontrivial. But the big news here is that, in addition to the group homomorphism (that defines this gauge group co-action) allows us to classify all the different models of this second generalization, this same group homomorphism also suggests that all these models can be interpreted as two-dimensional restrictions of the 2-lattice gauge theories.
The development of quantum technology and the advent of quantum computation have renewed interest in Hamiltonian formulations of lattice gauge theories. In contrast to Euclidean Monte Carlo calculations, Hamiltonian simulation requires a direct representation of the physical Hilbert space, an efficient treatment of enforcing Gauss' law as constraints, and a formulation of real-time dynamics in terms of degrees of freedom that can be encoded on quantum or quantum-inspired classical platforms. The starting point corresponds to finding a suitable basis for Hamiltonian lattice gauge theories. The existing literature focuses on several complementary approaches: electric basis, magnetic basis, gauge-fixed, quantum-link, qubit-regularised, finite-group, and orbifold formulations. This article primarily focuses on the prepotential and loop--string--hadron formulations, where non-Abelian Gauss laws are solved locally and the dynamics is written directly in terms of gauge-invariant loop, string and hadron excitations. The discussion covers the SU(2) and SU(3) constructions in one spatial dimension, the role of residual Abelian Gauss laws, and the extension to higher dimensions through point splitting. We conclude by highlighting its direct applications: eliminating redundant gauge degrees of freedom makes exact diagonalisation and tensor network calculations feasible for studying real-time dynamics, provides insights into thermalisation properties, enables mapping of physical degrees of freedom onto analog and digital quantum hardware, and enables quantum simulation of dynamics.
Motivated by quantum simulation, we consider lattice Hamiltonians for Yang-Mills gauge theories with finite gauge group, for example a finite subgroup of a compact Lie group. We show that the electric Hamiltonian admits an interpretation as a certain natural, nonunique Laplacian operator on the finite Abelian or non-Abelian group and derive some consequences from this fact. Independent of the chosen Hamiltonian, we provide a full explicit description of the physical, gauge-invariant Hilbert space for pure gauge theories and derive a simple formula to compute its dimension. We illustrate the use of the gauge-invariant basis to diagonalize a dihedral gauge theory on a small periodic lattice.
Higher gauge theory is a higher order version of gauge theory that makes possible the definition of 2-dimensional holonomy along surfaces embedded in a manifold where a gauge 2-connection is present. In this paper, we study Hamiltonian models for discrete higher gauge theory on a lattice decomposition of a manifold. We show that a construction for higher lattice gauge theory is well-defined, including in particular a Hamiltonian for topological phases of matter in 3+1 dimensions. Our construction builds upon the Kitaev quantum double model, replacing the finite gauge connection with a finite gauge 2-group 2-connection. Our Hamiltonian higher lattice gauge theory model is defined on spatial manifolds of arbitrary dimension presented by slightly combinatorialized CW-decompositions (2-lattice decompositions), whose 1-cells and 2-cells carry discrete 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional holonomy data. We prove that the ground-state degeneracy of Hamiltonian higher lattice gauge theory is a topological invariant of manifolds, coinciding with the number of homotopy classes of maps from the manifold to the classifying space of the underlying gauge 2-group.\n\n\n\nThe operators of our Hamiltonian model are closely related to discrete 2-dimensional holonomy operators for discretized 2-connections on manifolds with a 2-lattice decomposition. We therefore address the definition of discrete 2-dimensional holonomy for surfaces embedded in 2-lattices. Several results concerning the well-definedness of discrete 2-dimensional holonomy, and its construction in a combinatorial and algebraic topological setting are presented.
Simulation of quantum field theories and fundamental interactions are one of the most challenging tasks in modern particle physics. Classical computers generally fail to reproduce accurate results when it comes to strongly coupled theories such as QCD. Recent developments in quantum technologies open up the possibility of simulating such physical regimes by using quantum computers. In this paper, we study the quantum resource related to the simulability of a quantum theory, i.e. non-stabilizerness for Lattice Gauge Theory (LGT) with discrete symmetry gauge groups. We show that enforcing gauge constraints for Zl\mathbb{Z}_lZl​ LGTs has no cost in terms of this resource and discuss the relation between non-abelianity of the gauge group with the average non-stabilizerness of the gauge invariant Hilbert space.
We examine the Kogut-Susskind formulation of lattice gauge theories under the light of fermionic and bosonic degrees of freedom that provide a description useful to the development of quantum simulators of gauge-invariant models. We consider both discrete and continuous gauge groups and adopt a realistic multicomponent Fock space for the definition of matter degrees of freedom. In particular, we express the Hamiltonian of the gauge theory and the Gauss law in terms of Fock operators. The gauge fields are described in two different bases based on either group elements or group representations. This formulation allows for a natural scheme to achieve a consistent truncation of the Hilbert space for continuous groups, and provides helpful tools to study the connections of gauge theories with topological quantum double and string-net models for discrete groups. Several examples, including the case of the discrete D3{D}_{3}D3​ gauge group, are presented.